OH MY GOD THIS TOOK FOREVER TO WRITE
I am so sorry. I had major writers block, and…laziness…God, laziness, and procrastination, I just…SIGH I'm so sorry. Also it's not a very long chapter, and I'm terribly sorry, this whole chunin exams thing is going to be a pain to get through, BUT I WILL SURVIVE. Just...very sorry for the wait.
So, to my reviewers; I accidentally left out Pilar Ann in the last chapter, so special thanks to you! As for the rest of my lovely reviewers, hopefully I don't leave any out this time…
Redxcherrie, Archmagelite200yrs, akeginu, bbarbie325, Jasmine-.-Momo-chan, ringo-nin, Arashi-taichou, Pilar Ann, Sakura'sGhettoInner, a happy reader, XxblackxroseesxredxX, illneverknow, Demon-Child-XIII, Hollow SoulxxxxxxBroken Angel, Nuria Sato, Amaterasuice, BloodyGirl, Chikyu no Aijin, Contestshippinggirl, Jane Odair, Kisa Black, sheflirtswithstarbuckscashie rs, ChibiCHICKENluver, and a few anonymous! Thank you all so so so so so much! I always love hearing from you! I haven't replied to a lot of your reviews, I just had a lot of stuff going on that I didn't get around to it, so I'm very sorry.
We didn't stay like that for long before Shikamaru pointed out that Sasuke's leg was bleeding, causing me to spring off of him and examine the pant leg that was soaked in blood to heal it, only to find that it was actually my blood and that the wound on my abdomen was still bleeding profusely, which caused Sasuke to shoot me the most murderous glare I'd ever seen. I lifted a hand to my abdomen and slowly, careful not to overwork myself, worked my chakra into my abdomen. But when I looked over and saw Lee unconscious on the ground, I faltered. Sasuke saw me pause, and reached out to grab my wrist, pressing my hand into my abdomen again.
"No," Was all he said, before letting go of my wrist and watching me expectantly. I frowned a bit, throwing Lee another glance, and continued with my stomach. I had enough chakra to heal up the wound until it was shallow enough to heal on its own, but I didn't have enough to heal the bruises on my neck or to stop the wound on my abdomen from bleeding completely, so I still risked infection. But, upon my request, we would look for fresh water in a stream or something that I could dip a cloth in to clean my wound and wrap it before any infection got in.
I remembered with some clarity that it was during this battle I had cut my hair off. To be honest, I had gotten used to my hair being short before, and having long hair now seemed a bit weird. Shikamaru and Chouji were waking Naruto up with some difficulty, and Ino was helping Lee to his feet. It wasn't until Tenten showed up to get Lee that I finally spoke.
"I'm thinking about cutting my hair." I said, not exactly knowing why I spoke out loud. What would Sasuke care about the length of my hair? When we were younger I heard a rumor that he liked girls with long hair, but I didn't honestly believe he really cared about that.
"Do what you want." He responded, watching as Tenten violently shook Lee to snap him back into reality.
"I like it long. My mom likes it long. I just…don't want it to be a hassle."
He surprised me when he responded, "If it hinders you cut it." He spoke, and proceeded to surprise me even more when he reached out to finger a strand. I hadn't even noticed that we were sitting only a few inches apart until now. "If not," He paused, fingering the strand a moment longer before dropping it and looking back out at the people in the clearing, "Keep it."
My lips twitched with a smile, but it was gone when I saw Ino walking in our direction.
"Hey, Sakura," She greeted, smiling at me in what I assumed was supposed to be friendly, "I have some wipes that can clean the blood off your face, if you want." I had blood on my face? "…Do you want it?"
I guess I had taken too long to respond, because she seemed annoyed now, and realizing she had an ulterior motive, I was tempted to decline. But, if she really did have something to clean my face with, I would take it. I nodded appreciatively, drawing my legs up to my chest and using the tree to push myself up. My abdomen still screamed at the effort, but it wasn't nearly as painful as before. Sasuke watched me as I stood, and I sent him a quick smile before following Ino.
At least she hadn't been lying about the face wipes, but she began swiping at my face with a bit more force than necessary.
"What's going on with you and Sasuke, anyway?" She spat. I looked over at where Sasuke sat. Naruto had come to sit next to him and was whispering something, and Sasuke just stared back at him like he was the most annoying person on the planet. Which I guess was close to what Sasuke was thinking.
"We're teammates." I replied, turning my eyes back to see her reaction. She glared at me.
"Teammates don't hug like that." Another forceful swipe and I clenched my jaw.
"He was on a near-killing-spree, Ino, I wasn't going to just sit there and watch him do that."
"And a hug was supposed to help?" I didn't answer that. There wasn't really a way to explain it anyway. "Whatever. I just don't get why he hugged you back like you were his lifeline or something."
"Oh, I'm sorry Ino," I snapped back sarcastically, pulling the wipe out of her hand and wiping my own face so she couldn't assault me anymore, "Did you want to see him kill everyone in that clearing? Because I sure as hell didn't." She glared at me spitefully, but didn't argue with me.
"It's gone," She finally said, gesturing to where I was wiping my face, and I nodded, crumpling up the wipe in my hand.
"Thank you."
She didn't reply, and instead turned on her heel to make her way towards Chouji and Shikamaru. But before she walked too far, she stopped and turned to me, "If you think that just because he—hey, wait, where are you going?"
I didn't want to listen to her stake her claim on her precious Sasuke-kun, so I turned around and started heading toward my team.
"Bye-bye, Pig!" I called, waving behind me, and I heard her growl in frustration.
"Billboard-brow!"
We had found a stream with fresh water and fresh fish. I cleaned out my wound and left it until my chakra had recovered enough for me to heal it the rest of the way. It was an unbelievable comfort that Sasuke and Naruto were back to acting like they always had, bickering like children. I couldn't handle it if they were as tense as I was.
We sat around the water as the fish cooked, Naruto drooling at the sight. I noted with an embarrassing amount of satisfaction that Sasuke sat closer to me than he normally would, even if it still wasn't that close. But, I squashed that hope to the back of my mind, and berated myself for fan-girling.
I found it slightly ironic that we had the scroll we'd been looking for since the beginning but we still weren't done. Considering that bastard burned our heaven scroll, we were left to search for another.
And I hadn't even had any time to think about that vision from the witch.
"We need to find the next scroll soon," I finally spoke, "There are only thirteen pairs of scrolls. Our luck is going to run out soon if we don't hurry."
"Yeah," Sasuke agreed after a short silence, "Not to mention Orochimaru—" I gave a violent shudder at his name and Sasuke eyed me warily, "—Burned our heaven scroll, that lessens our chance of finding a pair by one."
There was a long silence that stretched out among us. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but a bit uneasy due to the fact that we had one day left to find a heaven scroll.
"Ne, Sakura-Chan?" Naruto called, breaking the silence. I looked up at him questioningly, but he didn't meet my eyes.
"What is it, Naruto?"
"How did you learn to do that healing stuff, anyway?" He looked up to meet my eyes, "I mean it's really cool, but…can it heal your neck? That looks painful." Sasuke stood suddenly, claiming he was going to get water and left the clearing. I watched him walk away before sighing.
"I um…" I began, staring at the dire in front of us. Naruto grabbed one of the fish and began eating, "I just…read a lot about it, you know? And I could heal it but…it really doesn't hurt that bad and I don't want to waste chakra. But I'm sure it looks pretty violent." I sent a weak smile his way, and he grinned in return, not even questioning my reason for my knowledge.
"Well, I don't know, it looks kind of bad-ass!" He grinned, turning his attention back to his fish. I smiled in response, but I didn't say anything.
About three terribly annoying things happened in the next five minutes. Sasuke didn't come back right away, and it was taking a suspiciously long time for just getting water. Naruto began plotting to open the scroll like an idiot, and then, of course, Kabuto stopped him.
Kabuto was here again.
Sasuke finally came back when Kabuto was leaning over Naruto, is hand on the scroll, and immediately assumed he was an enemy. While Sasuke and Kabuto had a mini-confrontation, I was silently seething in the background. What was the use hiding my hatred for Kabuto, anyway?
Even if I tried to be subtle, I could not hide my hatred for him at this moment.
When it was decided that Kabuto wasn't a threat because he already had both scrolls, he was enlisted to help us find our heaven scroll. I recalled the ninja that tried to steal our earth scroll with their genjutsu, and if I was being honest, I was not in the mood for their stupid games.
"Sakura?" I was brought out of my seething, Kabuto-induced thoughts when, who else, Kabuto spoke. I almost violently whipped my head in his direction, barely managing to commandeer my expression into a blank on when I locked eyes with him. "Are you alright?"
My eyes narrowed of their own accord, "Fine," I nearly spat.
"You just seem a bit lost in thought is all." He said, smiling tentatively at me. I managed to keep my face blank, but thousands of questioned were running through my head. Why the hell was he ever talking to me? And, as well as having the gall to actually speak to me, he was talking right beside me, while Naruto and Sasuke were slightly behind us. "You're hair," He started casually.
"Natural."
He made a hum of understanding, "It's a bit ostentatious for a ninja, don't you think?" He asked, still smiling at me.
"I'm sorry, are you questioning my abilities as a ninja?" I questioned, keeping my voice deadpan. His eyes widened and he shook his head.
"No! No, I wasn't questioning your abilities, Sakura-san," His hand reached out to gently touch my arm, an action that, for as gentle as it was, caused an exceedingly terrified reaction from me. My entire body tensed up when his hand made contact, but if he noticed, he didn't pull away, "Sakura-san, I'm sure you—"
"Why are you touching me?" I snapped, barely managing not to pull my arm away. Something flashed in his eyes, something I couldn't catch before his eyes were blank once more, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were anger or annoyance.
"Sakura." Turning back, I saw Sasuke gesture for me to fall back with him. Kabuto let go of my arm, turning forward and leaping up to the trees to lead us to the tower and I stopped long enough to be in line with Sasuke before following Kabuto's lead and jumping from branch to branch.
"Don't talk to him." Were the first words to leave his mouth, much to my surprise.
"Not like I want to," I defended, "But why?"
He didn't reply, and I accepted that was all I was going to get from him. I focused back on Kabuto, only to find him watching us out of the corner of his eye. In my brief anger at his blatant eavesdropping, I lost my footing and nearly tumbled out of the tree, but Sasuke slipped his arm around my waist, stopping to right me on the branch.
"Sakura-san," Kabuto spoke, and I looked up to see that he and Naruto had stopped for a moment, looking back at Sasuke and I. "You ought to be more careful." Then he turned and began trekking forward again.
"Oh, I'll show you careful," I muttered angrily.
"Sakura." Sasuke warned, and I briefly noticed that his hands were still on my waist, "Don't." I nodded, looking back at Kabuto and Naruto's retreating backs. Much to my displeasure, Sasuke's hands slipped away from me and we resumed speed, catching up to our teammate and our other, temporary teammate.
It was then I realized we were already in the genjutsu.
Now, either these genin were really fucking good at genjutsu, or I still sucked as a ninja, because I could not for the life of my pinpoint where the genjutsu ended and where reality began. We had already circled back to that giant bug that Naruto had impaled with a kunai and Kabuto had pointed out that we were already in the genjutsu, and I almost rubbed in his face that I knew about fifteen minutes ago but I didn't want people asking me why I didn't say anything.
In the blur of everything that happened next, all I really remember was that clone showing up of the ninja with the metal mask on his face and Naruto's attempt at hitting him only causing the clone to grow another torso right out of his back like some crazy Hydra shit or something. Then, before we knew it, we were surrounded by these clones in a genjutsu we couldn't get out of, not knowing where the original people were.
I distinctly remembered Naruto showing off his insane amount of chakra by repeating his shadow clone jutsu over and over without dying from chakra exertion, before we finally beat them, but I honestly wasn't in the mood for anything to take that long.
"Kabuto, shut up," I cut in when Kabuto was trying to explain something. His head snapped towards me and he stared at me as if I just killed his newborn, "I'm going to do something; hopefully it'll weed them out, everyone just…wait."
"Sakura-san, you can't just—"
"I'm sorry, didn't I just tell you to shut up or something? I'm not too keen on taking advice from someone who's failed this seven times." His jaw clenched, but he didn't say anything else. Gathering chakra into my hands, I swung them up above my head and slung them down on the ground. The earth shook and crumbled beneath our feet and the trees swayed, but not enough to actually throw someone out. Gathering more chakra, careful not to overwork it, I slammed down on the ground again. The trees shook violently, and while the clones were virtually unaffected, the genjutsu faltered and the three ninja came tumbling into the clearing.
"Sakura…" l looked up to meet Naruto's wide eyes, "That…was…AMAZING." I wasn't aware his voice could get that loud.
I gave a sheepish grin, "I, uh…read a lot."
"So," One of the ninja's spoke, his voice sounding tinny and mechanical through his mask, "The girl can throw a few powerful punches. But you've already seen that strength doesn't do much with these clones." I imagined the ninja was grinning as he multiplied the number of clones. Naruto matched his amount and they began a brawl. Kabuto, Sasuke, and I all stood on the outskirts of the fight.
"Sakura!" Kabuto scolded from my left. I narrowly avoided rolling my eyes, instead focusing on Naruto phasing right through a clone in his attempts of attack, "That was careless, what if—"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Kabuto." I rebutted, "Would you rather sit here helpless and wait for their genjutsu to be over? We're on a bit of a time crunch here." I saw him frown in the corner of my eye, before he joined in the fight with Naruto.
Gritting my teeth in anger, I gathered chakra in my fists to pound the ground again, hoping to upset a few clones, but found my chakra supply running low. I'd have to keep a close eye on that if I—
A grunt from my right pulled my attention towards Sasuke, who was clutching his neck, Sharingan in action. "Sasuke," I meant to scold him, but his name ended up coming out pretty breathless as I reached out to grip his arm. "Stop using your Sharingan if it hurts you so much." I tentatively pressed my fingers against his mark, hoping my cold skin might soothe the pain. I was satisfied to see him relax slightly, but he didn't release his Sharingan.
"The real guys are under ground," He finally spoke, not turning to look at me. I looked up in time to see Kabuto thrown to the side by one of the shinobi, and soon the three of them had closed in on him. I called to Naruto to warn him of his presence near Kabuto, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from Kabuto and the three genin. The genin were inexplicably backing away from him slowly, even as Kabuto remained sprawled on the ground, and with a closer look I realized his eyes were red.
Damn it, was I the only one to notice these things?
Naruto finally clued in and came to Kabuto's 'rescue' by punching the genin in the face and sending them to the ground in a pile. He fished out their scroll, a heaven scroll, the one we needed.
I found I couldn't share in Naruto's joy in finding the scroll when Sasuke was standing there clutching his neck the way he was. I found that all I could think about was the future forms of that curse mark, and felt much more terrified than relieved.
"Sakura." I hadn't noticed that we had started moving again until Kabuto said my name. I also hadn't noticed he was standing right in front of me until that moment, and it was all I could do to not punch him in the face.
"What?" I had meant for it to sound simply inquisitive, but it came out a harsh snap, and I saw the corners of his eyes tighten. I assumed he wasn't amused.
"I apologize." He said, "I underestimated you. And I scolded you for something that—"
"Yeah, okay, cool." I guess that wasn't a good response, because I saw his eyes narrowing, but I had turned my attention to Sasuke already. Ignoring Kabuto when he spoke my name again, I worked my way up to Sasuke, catching him by the elbow.
"Do you need help?" I asked, finding that I had to bend my head down to catch his eyes, which were focused on his feet.
"No." He spoke, and normally I would've been annoyed, but I guess I was exhausted enough to fool myself into finding some sort of softness in that refusal, like he was simply saying he was okay because he was actually okay, not because he didn't want me, and I let myself be satisfied with that. I did, however, gather a very small amount of soothing chakra into my fingertips, and wedged my hand under his to press them against his neck. I smiled when his shoulders dropped, losing their tension. I knew I couldn't heal the bruise without it hurting him more, but I could still try to ease the pain a bit.
"Sakura." I was beginning to loathe that voice. Really, I was. I turned back to face Kabuto, letting Sasuke walk ahead once again. Kabuto gave me a small smile that I might've found sincere if I didn't know him already.
"I just…" He faltered when I glared at him, and though I'm sure his thoughts were filled with vicious homicidal possibilities, he only looked away bashfully. Fucking bastard. "I just wanted to say you really impressed me. You are a very powerful girl, I thought you should know."
"Okay, Kabuto." I replied, keeping my voice even when I considered he might find my hostility suspicious. "Thanks."
He nodded, but when I turned to catch up to Sasuke again, I felt Kabuto grip my arm, much tighter than necessary. "I wonder," he continued, his voice sounding so innocent I nearly threw up, "Where you learned such attacks."
I realized with terrifying clarity that he was digging for information, and I had to force myself not to tear my eyes away from his for fear of looking suspicious. His eyes bore into mine, and he went so far as to lean into me, looking as if he could find my deepest, darkest secrets by just staring. And against all better judgment, I found myself fearing that he could.
There was a thump, and we both turned to see that Sasuke had fallen to one knee, gripping his neck. I was able to rip my arm away from Kabuto's hand and quickly made my way to Sasuke's side. I slipped my arm around his waist, and his arm quickly wound around my shoulders, his hand clutching my shoulder hard enough to bruise.
He thought I missed the look he sent Kabuto's way, but really I was just so grateful I couldn't bear to mention it. Kabuto didn't speak to me for the remainder of the journey to the base, and for that I was thankful. But I could feel him eye me the whole way, and Sasuke's painful grip on my shoulder never let up. I wondered exactly how many enemies I was going to make in this life.
